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Engaging With the Unreal: Introduction to the Special Issue (Vol. 45, No. 2)

Year: 2025

Type: editorial

Abstract: This is a special issue of Imagination, Cognition, and Personality that deals with fantasy and cognition. People engage with the unreal continuously in daily life. These engagements can take various forms. Bilbo the hobbit is not real, yet I can read about him in the novel The Hobbit, I can pretend that he is my dinner guest, I can watch him run around in the movie The Hobbit, I can remember that he grows really old and other features about him. Other ways of engaging with the unreal include watching television, playing computer games, daydreaming, and engaging in virtual reality. In this way, people interact with, encode, store, retrieve, and think about information that extends beyond their immediate reality. Analyzing how people engage with the unreal is central to understanding imaginative thought, media consumption, narrative engagement, virtual experiences, and aspects of human communication such as role play and pretend play

Source: Imagination Cognition and Personality

DOI: 10.1177/02762366251377803

Authors: Pierre Gander, Rohan Kapitany, Valerie van Mulukom, Merel Semeijn, Kata Szita

Institutions: University of Gothenburg, Durham University, University of Oxford, Oxford Brookes University, University of Groningen, Dublin City University, Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics

Language: English

Topic: Media Influence and Health

Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,400

OpenAlex ID: W4415990818

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